


Fever Pitch

by dango96



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alpha Byleth, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Breeding, F/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mildly Dubious Consent, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega Hubert, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Public Claiming, Public Sex, Vaginal Sex, Wall Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:00:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28229529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dango96/pseuds/dango96
Summary: Hubert has never had to deal much with heats in his life. But the war has taken a toll on their supplies, including suppressants, and he finds himself largely trying to pretend it's not happening, working through his heat even as it worsens more and more.But his heat is threatening to set off heats for the rest of the army - meaning someone has to take care of it, and soon.Byleth volunteers.
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 4
Kudos: 51
Collections: FE3H Kink Meme





	Fever Pitch

**Author's Note:**

> This is for a kink meme prompt:  
> "So . . . I've seen some brilliant public use a/b/o fic come from the anon meme and wondered if anyone could do the same for the black eagles and Hubie as the omega
> 
> Hubert is an omega, but has never let that keep him from his duty and has always had a clad iron control on his instincts. Until deep into the war, that is, when there are some complications, some long nights or difficulties that leave him running ragged. And not only that, but he's been going around in public reeking like needy worn out omega with no consideration at all. He seems to be the only person not to notice. But when it's brought up during war council, he too late realizes his error and an alpha volunteers before he can protest.
> 
> How willing Hubert is to be humiliated and punished is up to you. Maybe he sighs and takes his punishment with grace or he snarls and fights it and has to be restrained. Was thinking Ferdinand, Edelgard, Jeritza or Sylvain would be a good fit for this, but dealers choice (maybe a terrified A!Bernie is chosen at random and he just bends over and tells her to get on with it lol). Don't mind any particular sort of a/b/o anatomy (intersex, trans, cis)"
> 
> I've never done ABO before and wanted to do my own spin on it. This is pretty heavily based in sexual fantasy with unusual genital configurations, so some **warnings** :
> 
> There is very public sex, and there's a public humiliation element to it. In this universe, an omega in an unchecked heat being bred in public isn't an unusual occurrence. It's "dubiously consensual" in the sense that Hubert is heavily in heat, but Byleth gives him the option to refuse. He's not exactly of sound mind to say no, but he would've consented without being in heat, to be clear.
> 
> In this universe, all alphas (regardless of sex) have penises, all omegas have vaginas, and there is some non-neutral language used to describe these things. There are no knots.
> 
> I hope you enjoy it!

Hubert has never particularly been concerned with matters of his secondary sex. An inconvenience, at worst — an outdated social concept, not unlike the importance placed on Crests.

Perhaps he has Edelgard to thank for that. Despite being born an alpha, she'd always eschewed the informal societal hierarchy around secondary sexes, much like Crests. _Yet another immutable product of one's birth used to control someone,_ she'd said to him, once.

Or perhaps it's his upbringing. Where some noble families might have refused to have an omega for an heir other than as a last resort, House Vestra has never considered one's status as an alpha, a beta, or even an omega to be a hindrance to their duties to the Emperor. Each position has its own advantages and disadvantages, after all. Nor have they ever had a family Crest to concern themselves with, for that matter.

He supposes he's lucky, in that regard. Unlike other noble omegas, ogled and browsed like breeding stock for their potential to provide a Crest, he's always vanished into the background of things. Well, save for the occasional jeer during his school days; a smirk from a Blue Lion, a giggle from a Golden Deer, behind his back where they thought he wouldn't hear it.

_There goes Hubert again, following the Imperial princess around like a lost lamb. Do you think she uses him for her heats? Probably not, but with a face that ugly, I'm sure he wouldn't complain..._

How interesting that their little jokes had stopped after the war began, after word had spread of them eliminating the filth among the Empire's ranks, starting with his own father. How very, very interesting.

But five long years have passed, and the stocks of heat suppressants have grown thin, rationed largely to the front-line troops. Hubert makes do with ever-dwindling portions of pyrflower, an herb grown in the Vestra family gardens with heat-suppressing properties, but his portions grow thinner each month.

He barely has a thought to spare for it. Not with everything else going on; their professor's sudden re-emergence, their assault on Arianrhod. He's too busy to care, and he's never considered himself different from the average alpha or beta, anyway, never put much thought into ideas of _breeding_ or _scent_ or _marking_. It's been so many years since he's had a heat that he'd almost forgotten how it feels, and perhaps some part of him had become deluded that he was no longer capable of it.

And then the warmth starts.

An uncomfortable fever, itching and spreading under his skin, so distracting that he has no choice but to stop in the middle of his paperwork. At first, he thinks it an allergic reaction, but a self-examination shows no rash nor hives.

What it _does_ show, however, is an uncomfortable dampness in his smallclothes.

Hubert sighs irritably, settling on the bed, pushing a hand down his trousers to touch himself. It's nearly time for him to sleep, anyway, and this will make him more tired.

_This should only take a few minutes._

And it does, but what it _doesn't_ provide is much relief. The itch recedes, ever so slightly, but his sex throbs against his hand, insistent.

A second orgasm doesn't help matters much, grinding his fingers against his most sensitive spot until he comes, oversensitive and frustrated. It's only when he gets desperate enough to stuff three fingers inside, spreading himself as full as he can manage, that he feels some sense of release, groaning as he clenches tight around his own knuckles.

"Fuck," Hubert hisses to himself as he comes down, sweat dripping down his temple. He's able to admit it to himself then — he's in heat, despite the circumstances. His biological urges will not wait for a war to end, no matter how much he wills them to.

_There should still be pyrflower in my system,_ he thinks, even if his supply has worn down to maybe a thimble's worth, and he'd taken a quarter of that at the beginning of the month. _Perhaps it'll be a brief heat. Hardly any scent at all._

* * *

Hubert is quickly proved wrong.

He wonders if, perhaps, he isn't quite as fortunate as he'd thought. That he isn't quite as similar to alphas and betas as he'd grown to think.

Because suddenly, he feels eyes on his back when walking down the halls. He sees the lingering glances, the alphas adjusting their grip on their swords, admiring what little of his body isn't left to the imagination by his uniform.

It makes him feel like a piece of meat, and he rather loathes it. No longer does he walk in the shadows unnoticed: instead, he's the center of attention.

But it's easy enough to think that these urges are isolated to the commonfolk. The more weak-willed, the lechers and boors, the soldiers worn down from battle and looking for something to make them feel good, even if it means ogling the same spymaster they'd described as a ghoul weeks before.

Hubert starts to wonder if it's only his intimidating presence and his ability to defend himself keeping him from an unfortunate encounter.

And throughout it all, the heat doesn't stop. In fact, it seems to only get worse. The itching is such that when his day's work is done, he can hardly stand to be wearing his clothes, not with how stiflingly hot they feel on his skin. He damn near tears them off, growling like an animal as he fucks himself on his fingers, huffing and panting.

Worse yet, his thoughts have started to _wander_.

It starts off as vague shapes in his mind. Strong arms, a thick cock, a shadowy figure with no face, no identity to be ashamed of. Something holding him in place, something stuffing him full, and breeding him until this damned heat breaks.

Then he pictures a finger running against his clit, forcing his tight hole to squeeze and squeeze and squeeze on that thick intrusion until it twitches and comes and fills him even more, spilling hot against his womb.

It's a filthy fantasy, with himself on the bottom, a reversal of his usual whims of being on top. Not that he's ever had an opportunity to fulfill such things — there's been no time, not with his work yet unfinished. But he'd always fancied himself as dominant, regardless of society's ideas on the matter.

Here, though, his body seems to have other ideas. Suddenly, he can't get enough of something being inside of him, and his mind obsesses over it well into the daytime. Suddenly, he's restraining himself from mentally cataloguing which members of the Black Eagle Strike Force are alphas.

Yet Hubert tries his best to suppress it. Truly, he does.

But one night, the shadowy figure in his mind melts into more defined muscular arms, into soft breasts and pale eyes. He imagines a hand pulling his hair, and teeth on his neck. A voice, firm but gentle, ordering him to stay still.

He can't help it, he tells himself. He's — _lonely_. His heat is a lonely thing, filling him with the urge to be near _someone_. She's merely the first option to come to mind, he tells himself. There is no further meaning to it.

And then he imagines Byleth filling him up. How thick and swollen she'd be, how tight he'd feel. He imagines her hands all over him, calloused yet gentle, and how easily those same hands could snap his neck.

Hubert comes harder than he ever has in his life, gasping out broken moans as his hips stutter downward, four fingers pressed as deep as they can go.

It's intense enough that he's shaking violently as he finishes, but even his most powerful orgasm provides less relief than he'd felt the first day. The heat is _worsening_ , he realizes.

But Hubert is nothing if not stubborn. He grits his teeth, and decides to redouble his efforts at ignoring it. After all, he expects his comrades, at least, to rise above such a triviality — and above all else, his duty to Her Majesty is paramount, and he would rather die than forsake it.

Even if it means looking Byleth in the eye at tomorrow's meeting.

* * *

Once again, Hubert is proved wrong.

Perhaps he should have expected this from the start of the war council, where a long, uncomfortable silence settles over the usually talkative bunch. Or from the way Edelgard looks at him, chewing on the corner of her pencil in an old anxious habit.

But it isn't until Sylvain clears his throat that he starts to realize what's going on.

"I'm just gonna say what we're all thinking," Sylvain sighs. "Somebody's in heat, and somebody needs to take care of it."

Hubert pales in his seat.

"Um," Bernadetta squeaks, receding further back into her chair. "Not— not me, right? You're not talking about me?"

"Bernie, sweetie, you're a beta, remember?" Dorothea reminds her, patting her on the shoulder, though the physical contact seemingly does little to soothe her.

"Sylvain is right." Edelgard sounds hesitant, and it doesn't escape Hubert's notice that she pointedly avoids looking at him. "I know we're low on suppressants, but if there's someone here going into heat, then they need to either sit out meetings until it stops, or find something to stop it."

_Something._

Hubert feels his stomach sinking. He knows just as well as anyone that the only way to stop a heat, other than time, is a high dose of suppressants — or a successful breeding.

And at the moment, only one of those options is available to him, unless he wants to isolate himself to his room during the height of an incredibly important war for _weeks_ , when Her Majesty needs him more than ever.

He becomes aware of several pairs of eyes on him, now — Byleth among them, sitting next to Edelgard, her expression perfectly impassive. He feels oddly naked under her gaze, and tries not to look at her.

"Why?" Byleth speaks evenly, causing a few surprised glances to be thrown her way. Hubert feels grateful for the temporary distraction. "What happens if the heat goes unchecked?"

"I forgot you're a bit sheltered about these kinds of things, Professor," Linhardt interjects. "A heat can spread from person to person. One omega in heat can start another omega's heat, which can trigger the heat of any alpha or beta, and... pretty soon, the whole army's — you know."

He makes some rather _evocative_ motions with his fingers, which prompts a muffled giggle from Caspar beside him. Byleth merely nods slowly, absorbing this information.

For a moment, Hubert thinks he's going to get away with it. That this will be the end of the conversation, they'll talk about the next battle, and — he'll figure something out, somehow. Perhaps he'll partake in war council through a closed door from now on, until he can get himself under control.

"Well, Hubert?"

But the sound of Felix's sharp voice makes him flinch, and he slowly turns his head. Felix, _alpha, major crest, aggressive, strong, **hold me down on the training ground and fuck me until this stops, fuck me alpha fuck me fuck me fuck me.**_

The heat itches sharply around Hubert's collar, where the air meets the skin on his neck.

"Are you going to do something about it?" The others had been polite enough to not address him directly, but Felix has never been one to mince words, even as Sylvain looks at him reproachfully. "Or are you going to keep wafting your omega stink around the whole monastery until someone does something about it _for_ you?"

Normally, a biting retort would find its way into Hubert's mouth. Composed, witty, venomous. But all he can focus on is the implication in the latter half of Felix's words. How had he forgotten? He'd witnessed a few unchecked omegas getting forcibly bred in his lifetime, made an example in public in front of their peers. He's been in danger of it this entire time.

"Felix," Edelgard scolds him quietly. He can hardly find it in himself to feel grateful for Her Majesty's defense as he pushes himself shakily into a standing position.

"He's right," Hubert mumbles, turning away to hide himself. The heat is starting to make him feel dizzy, and he can hardly get the words out. "I should go."

"Hubert—"

"Finish the meeting without me," Hubert utters, stumbling through the war room doors, not looking behind him.

He spends the rest of the evening in his quarters, door locked, rutting uselessly against his palm.

* * *

Hubert's mind feels so much more clear that morning, so much so that he starts to wonder if it'd all been a fluke. Or that perhaps the heat has finally broken.

It's what he wants to believe, even as the fever still itches underneath his clothes. He dresses lighter, to try and lessen the severity of it. His dress shirt, rather than the overcoat and cape. A slimmer pair of pants.

Still, he's not entirely free of self-preservation. He just needs to head to the former Golden Deer classroom, converted into something like an office for various paperwork and minutia, to retrieve some documents. Then he'll return to his quarters for the rest of the evening, only slipping out for a meal or two.

He isn't prepared for how hard the heat hits him once he's outside in the open air.

The eyes on his back — he can feel them even more than ever. He feels like a prey animal with ambush predators at every corner, waiting for him to make a mistake or a lapse of judgment. And oh, Goddess, the _smell_. He swears he can smell every alpha on the campus, filling his nostrils with their suffocating scent. His legs begin to shake.

Hubert is starting to feel like he's losing his mind from all of this. How did anyone function before the invention of suppressants, truly?

He swears under his breath, forcing himself to take steps across the courtyard, to ignore the stares, to ignore his bodily urges to jump anything that moves.

_Just a few more minutes, and I'll be back in my room, and I can take off these stifling clothes._

But just as he's nearly reached his goal, a hand grabs his wrist.

He twists it on pure reflex, trying to break loose, while flicking his other wrist to drop the hidden knife down into his hand, thrusting it forward to meet his assailant. At least these instincts still exist to protect him: honed over years of training, pushing to the forefront of his fogged up brain.

Yet the knife never connects, and Hubert's eyes widen as he finds none other than Byleth standing in front of him, her gaze stony and revealing nothing, holding both of his wrists.

Her hand squeezes his wrist, thumb digging painfully into the tendons there, until he's forced to drop the weapon on the grass. His brain faintly suggests the knife on his sock garter, but the thought is soon forgotten when Byleth steps forward to place her foot between his legs, staring right into his eyes.

His thoughts start to get fuzzy again. His profane dream from a few evenings ago comes to mind, and he feels a throb in his groin, already hot and sticky. Were he a lesser man, he would whine from the sheer discomfort of it all.

"You're not supposed to be out here, Hubert," she states, as plain as if they were discussing the weather. He hardly notices she's backing him up with her steps, not until his back hits a pillar.

"I know," Hubert chokes out, and he hates how he sounds so affected by her mere presence. Has she always smelled this good? "I was simply—"

"You're going to get hurt," Byleth continues, as if he hadn't spoken, and — to both his fear and absolute delight, her eyes look him up and down, like she's appraising his body. She releases his wrists, letting them fall to his sides. "Or you're going to hurt someone."

Hubert doesn't have any reply to that, his mouth opening and closing, letting out a strangled sound of surprise when her hand clutches in the fabric of his shirt.

"Unless," her voice drops in volume, grows the slightest bit huskier, "someone takes care of you."

The sweat on the back of Hubert's neck goes cold, suddenly.

"Professor," he pleads, and he isn't sure what he's pleading for.

Her fingers tear the front of his shirt open, and he feels the flush of shame crawl up his cheeks, shutting his eyes. How humiliating — he's always been far scrawnier than any of his peers, bony and pale.

But Byleth's hands map over his skin regardless, lingering on the angles of his ribs, as if enjoying the feeling. Her thumb flicks over a flushed nipple, and he gasps like a virgin, squirming.

Which isn't inaccurate, he supposes. He's never done this, not ever. He wonders if Byleth has. He wonders how she'll act, if she'll be clumsy, inexperienced. He wonders big her cock is, how good it feels, how much she'll cum, how her skin would feel on his how good how good how _good_ it would feel to be taken taken _taken_ —

"Please," Hubert whimpers, quiet enough that he hopes only she can hear, "get on with it."

"Eager," Byleth observes, agonizingly calm as she wrenches the shirt off of his arms. She at least allows him the dignity of leaving his gloves on. "You know, a lot of people wanted to do this."

"Oh?" His voice shakes. He isn't sure he wants to know the answer to his own question.

"Mmm. Ferdinand volunteered," Byleth remarks quite casually, ignoring Hubert's grimace. Her hands make quick work of his belt, casting it to the grass below them. "Something about his imperial duty. And I've heard a few commoners talking about you."

Suddenly, an unfamiliar groan sounds out, and Hubert's eyes snap open. He's mortified to find they've drawn a _crowd_ , and some of them are already pleasing themselves to the sight.

He's lucky enough to not recognize any faces. Yet.

"But I wanted to make sure no one else took you," Byleth utters, pulling his focus back to her, to her hands hesitating in front of his waist. "I wanted to make sure it was me."

The breath suddenly disappears from his lungs. He swears he can hear his heartbeat hammering in his ears, a mile a minute.

"Professor?"

She looks — faraway, pensive, as if deliberating something. Mysterious and as beautiful as ever, soft hair around her face.

"You know," she finally says, biting her lip, "I've never mated before. I've never really felt anything, as an alpha."

Her hands go to his waist, pulling down his pants. Hubert obediently steps out of each leg — as humiliating as it is to be nearly naked in front of a growing crowd of strangers, the thought of refusal doesn't even cross his mind anymore.

"But for some reason, when I heard other people talking about breeding you," Byleth says, her eyes suddenly full of some emotion — something like concentration, or passion, he can't place it — "I don't know if it's your hormones in the air, but I got _really_ mad. I really..."

Her hand goes to Hubert's crotch, squeezes his wet groin through his smallclothes. He can see through her shorts that she's hard, a bulge pressing against the front of the garment.

His heart skips a beat.

"I really, _really_ want you, Hubert," she breathes, unbuttoning her shorts and taking them off leg by leg, revealing the erection underneath, straining against the lace of her panties.

"Professor," Hubert whimpers.

"Say no," Byleth whispers, bridging the gap between them, so that their faces are mere inches apart. He can see every individual strand of her eyelashes, the softness of her lips. "Say no, and I'll pick you up and lock you up alone in your bedroom, and you can ride this out until it's done."

"Professor," he repeats, and _Goddess_ he can feel the bulge of her cock against his leg and he _wants_ it, inside and deep and fucking him and and and "Please. Please, I want you."

That's all it takes.

She roughly pulls his underwear down, then her own, and then she's lifting him up effortlessly by his legs, pressing his back against the pillar, and then—

He hardly gets a chance to admire her cock before it's pushing in and in and in, thick and flushed pink and surrounded by light green curls, but _Goddess_ , he can certainly feel it when it bottoms out in his sensitive cunt. A moan wrenches out of him from somewhere deep in his chest, clenching on her, his legs wrapping around her waist.

And then she starts to fuck into him, a bit clumsily at first, but quickly building to a faster rhythm. Each piston of her hips feels like it's driving directly into his core, pushing his heat towards a fever pitch, driving him further out of his mind. It's even better than he could've possibly imagined, his toes curling and twitching in his shoes, his head slumped back against the pillar.

The first orgasm comes embarrassingly fast, spasming and squeezing around her, making embarrassingly loud noises as he does. It's as he's coming down that he becomes, once again, acutely aware of the crowd they've gathered — it's larger now, and he feels a spike of humiliation, his cheeks flushing darkly.

_Don't look,_ he wants to say, even as he feels himself building rapidly towards another climax. Byleth has him spread in such a way that every thrust seems to slide against his clit, and Goddess, he feels like he's going to break from it. _I don't want you to see. You're all shameless, all of you—_

And then he notices her.

Edelgard herself, standing there, watching him with mixed emotions on her face. The last person he'd wanted to see him like this. Logically, of course Her Majesty would be here — if nothing else, to make sure he wasn't being assaulted by someone unsavory.

That knowledge doesn't stop the feeling of white hot shame burning through him, but the shame, too, seems to be its own form of arousal, building until he's shuddering against Byleth again, pinned like a stuck butterfly, fucked ruthlessly into a second orgasm.

There's something utterly primal about it, the sweat dripping down his neck, the feeling of skin against skin. Byleth positions her mouth against his neck, kissing and sucking bruises into his flesh, and he can hear her starting to pant heavily, a sign of her own mounting pleasure.

It's like he's coming undone, laid bare and forcibly claimed, but his body is singing, despite it all. This is what he's been wanting, craving, needing. It's as if Byleth's body is becoming one with his own, entering him, taking everything he has to offer and planting something of herself there.

He is an incomplete puzzle, and she is filling him in with her pieces.

And Hubert finds that he loves it, all of it. Soon enough, he's begging for it, panting incoherently in her ear, finding he no longer cares about who should hear him. All that matters is the thick cock rocking into him, the swell of it, the heat and the grind.

His third orgasm comes as she _growls_ against his skin, biting there like an animal, holding herself in as far as she will go. And he feels it — her spend hitting his insides, painting them white, coming and coming and _coming_. It satisfies something primal inside of him, something that he hadn't even known existed before this heat.

It doesn't stop, even after she's filled him enough for it to start leaking out around her. It keeps going, and going, dizzyingly hot, pumping him full. He can feel her fingernails digging into the flesh of his hips, holding his legs so far apart that they ache.

And then it's done.

Before he can beg for more, she's slipping out, softening, easing him back into a standing position. If not for the pillar behind him to lean on, Hubert would collapse, legs violently shaking and ample come dripping down his thighs.

"Professor," Hubert whimpers, mortified to find his voice cracking. He'd put so much thought into this aspect, into being bred and claimed — and not so much thought into what would come next. Will she leave him here? Will he become the plaything of any other alpha who wants to satisfy their urges? He can pick out several faces in the crowd that seem to be anticipating just that, licking their lips, watching Byleth's expression for cues. Would Her Majesty interfere? His thoughts turn diplomatic: it would raise morale to leave them to their own devices, so long as they don't injure him too severely...

"Byleth."

Her unexpected voice startles his mind into focus, what little he can spare in his post-coital haze. "What?"

She tucks herself calmly into her shorts, buttoning them back up. Staring at him with an expression so serene, you'd think she'd been fishing for the last hour.

"Call me Byleth," she repeats, and before Hubert knows it, he's being picked up like a bride; carried naked and exhausted through the gathered crowd, who can only part in stunned silence.

Hubert finds himself just as stunned, and it isn't until they reach the second floor that he realizes she's carrying him to his bedroom.

He finds himself dumped onto the mattress, and then — Byleth is on top of him, and there's a hand on his groin again, but this time it's with a handkerchief, wiping him clean. He squirms with the sensitivity of it, but it feels good to have the sweat and slick mopped away.

"Your heat hasn't broken yet," she observes calmly, touching his forehead with the back of her hand. "It might take a while."

His mouth opens, then closes, still a bit dazed by it all. The heat has certainly receded, at least for the time being, only a dull buzzing in his mind instead of an insistent need, but — she's right. He can feel it in his skin, in the tremble of his hands.

"Or I might need to breed you again," Byleth comments idly as she scoots off the bed into a standing position, as easily as if she were discussing war strategy, or a flavor of tea. Hubert feels his cheeks go bright red.

"Why?" He chokes out. "This isn't your responsibility, Profes— Byleth. You could have just left me there."

"I wouldn't do that to you," she scoffs, and for a moment, there's a genuine flicker of offense in her eyes. "And don't you remember what I said?"

His memory is a blur of lust and haze, but her words do come to the forefront of his mind with a bit of effort: _I want you, Hubert._

"You want me," Hubert points out, his eyes suddenly feeling rather sluggish in his head as he tracks her movements, taking off his shoes and unclipping his sock garters. A heavy fatigue is settling over him, now that the adrenaline is wearing down. "And you had me."

"You're my mate now," Byleth answers, as easily as anything, and his heart _flutters_ in his chest. "I'd like to have you a lot more."

Not for the first time, Hubert feels like the air's been knocked out of him, staring at her with a sense of awe.

"Unless you don't want that," she quickly adds, stripping off her cape and coat. He wonders if any individual in their army would refuse Byleth as a mate, as beautiful and capable as she is — not that the same can be said for himself.

"I do," Hubert clarifies. "But why me? I—"

"I like you," Byleth interrupts him, climbing back onto the mattress, and — suddenly, her scent is suffocating again, strong in only the way an alpha's can be, but so uniquely _her_. "I don't think I realized how much until now."

He stiffens in surprise as she embraces him, but quickly melts into it, as if on instinct, soothed by the pressure of his mate on top of him. His arms tiredly find their way around her in return, pulling her closer, nestling into her neck.

"I don't understand you," Hubert chuckles tiredly, closing his eyes. "But the feeling is mutual."

They lay like that for a while, breathing slowly, and for the first time since this damned heat began, Hubert finally feels _peace_.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know in the comments below if you enjoyed it!


End file.
